" In those days, Schumann used
to give his criticisms a semi-dramatic form. On this occasion he
represents his _alter ego_, Eusebius, as rushing into the room with a
new composition, and the exclamation "Hats off, gentlemen! a genius!"
He then analyzes the variations in glowing poetic language and
rapturously exclaims at the end that "there is genius in every bar."
And this was only one of the _early_ works of Chopin, in which he has
by no means attained his full powers. Of another quite early work, the
second concerto, he writes that it is a composition "which none of us
can approach except it be with the lips to kiss the hem;" and later
on, the Preludes, the most inspired of his works, led Schumann to
exclaim that Chopin "is and remains the boldest and noblest artistic
spirit of the time."
Schumann would have found it difficult to induce any of his countrymen
to endorse his exalted opinion of Chopin, but the Hungarian Liszt
joined hands with him heartily, and pronounced Chopin "an artist of
the first rank." "His best works," he says, "contain numerous
combinations of which it must be said that they did nothing less than
create an epoch in the treatment of musical style.
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